Absynth Minded ?

Perhaps van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso were all just faking it. Not their art, of course, but the purported effects of absinthe, a potent green-coloured liquor rumoured to cause hallucination and even drive indulgers to madness. Now a team of German and English chemists has found that turn-of-the-century absinthes boasted only low amounts of a chemical thought to induce insanity, thujone, which comes from the wormwood used to brew absinthe. The chemical's levels in vintage absinthes were comparable to the drink now legally sipped by nostalgia-craving hipsters in Europe and the United States. Artistes like van Gogh drank absinthe freely until 1915, when the French banned production. Fortunately, some collectors stocked up on absinthe, and many pre-ban vintages survive to this day, particularly bottles of Pernod Fils, the largest producer of the day. A team led by Dirk Lachenmeier, of the Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Office in Karlsruhe, Germany, analysed 13 pre-ban absinthes for their levels of thujone and several other chemicals that might cause drinkers to see the green fairy. Their investigation found that previous measures of the thujone content of pre-ban absinthes had been overestimated by nearly a factor of 10. Lachenmeier's team found low levels of other potential hallucinogens. But cheaper absinthes that no one bothered to collect might have contained methanol, an alcohol that can cause blindness. But it seems that Toulouse-Lautrec's swill caused little more madness than the $65 bottles now sold in the US.